MSIBA WA KUONDOKEWA NA CHIFU PATRICE KUNAMBI

SUNDAY NEWS Reporter, 22nd January 2011

ONE of the founders of Tanganyika African Union (TANU) and CCM, Chief Patrick Kunambi, died early on Saturday 22/1/2011 in Dar es Salaam.

CCM Secretary General, Yussuf Makamba said in a statement that Chief Kunambi died at 3:25 am at his home in Ubungo Msewe of heart complications.

He was 94. “CCM received reports of Chief Kunambi’s death with shock and extreme grief. “Chief Kunambi was one of 17 founder members of TANU on July 7, 1954.

He was one of the four founder members of TANU who were still alive until yesterday,” Mr Makamba said in the statement bearing a condolence message to the bereaved family, relatives, friends and all CCM members.

Mr Makamba paid tribute to Chief Kunambi for his enormous and outstanding contribution to the nation throughout his life time, as a nationalist, civil servant and a public leader. Patrict Kunambi was born on August 16, 1916 in Matombo Ward, Morogoro Region.

He was the last of 11 children of Chief Kunambi, who died in 1955 at the age of 145. He attained his secondary school education in Tabora, where he was one of the students of the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.

Chief Kunambi later attended Tabora Teachers’ College and Makerere University College, Uganda. He taught at different schools and teachers’ training colleges, before going to the University of Duqene in the United States for a Masters Degree between 1962 and 1964.

He served as the Registrar at the University of Dar es Salaam as a volunteer for nine months. Chief Kunambi was Director of Personnel and Administration at the National Transport Corporation (NTC) between 1971 and 1979. Chief Kunambi was an active TANU leader despite his other engagements as the Chief of Waluguru in Morogoro Region and a teacher.

According to the CCM statement, he led a historic TANU meeting in early 1955, which resolved to send Mwalimu Nyerere to the United Nations in New York to press for the independence of Tanganyika.

Mwalimu was in New York to counter a delegation sent by British Colonial administration which campaigned for delay of the independence of Tanganyika for 25 years.

The late Chief Kunambi is survived by two children and seven grandchildren. His wife, Bernadeta, and his two children had passed away.

R I P.